CONTRIBUTED -
Environmental aides in training (from left), Leonard Brissett, Ruckel Rosea and Peter Leslie during a recent tree planting exercise at the Cobbla campus in Mandeville.
HEIGHTENED DEMAND for more personnel to assist in the national efforts to upgrade and preserve Jamaica's natural environment has led to the recruitment of over 300 'environmental aides' by the National Youth Service (NYS).
The training of these environmental aides started recently at the Cobbla campus in Mandeville, through a $3.7 million grant from the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica.
At the end of the six weeks the aides, who are mostly teenagers, are to be placed in eight government and non-governmental agencies which will in turn deploy them and oversee their work at affected sites across the country.
AREAS OF SERVICE
Their job description includes planting 250,000 seedlings in nurseries and then later transplanting them at select sites across the island as a support to the national
reforestation programme.
In addition, they will continue the beach clean-ups started in an Office of National Reconstruction (ONR)-led, post-'Ivan' effort. They will also assist with pest eradication and rehabilitate close to 100 drainages over the six-month work period.
ENVIRONMENTAL CORP
Besides providing voluntary service in an area of great demand, the underlying objective of the environmental corp is to create a cadre of young people equipped with the necessary skills to influence change in their own communities, and who will encourage environmentally friendly practices among their peers.
"What we are trying to do with this project is to raise consciousness about our responsibility to the natural environment. By denuding our hillsides and through the coal making industry.... we have lost a lot and this is affecting our eco system," said Rev. Adinhair Jones, NYS's executive director.
The environmental corps is now undergoing 49 hours of intense training in such topics as garden management, conservation, water pollution, forestry and climate change
